Most chemists will say that students learn chemistry by doing chemistry. One of my own mentors used to say, “Education is not a spectator sport.” Research provides a unique opportunity for hands-on work and the prospect of finding a solution to a problem no one else has solved – a fun way (and some would say the only way) to educate chemists.

Each summer, Owens Hall buzzes with activity as more than 50 students carry out research alongside faculty mentors. The summer provides time for science, and nothing can improve the chances of success more than applying one’s full attention to a task.

Here is what a walk around the department on a summer day is like.

Professor Bill Ojala’s group occupies a corner lab at the end of the hall, but in the summer the students also colonize a bigger teaching lab around the bend. Ojala and his students study the solid state. They are trying to describe the most important interactions between molecules that cause them to align the way they do in the process of forming a solid crystal. Ojala’s students use a systematic approach: They synthesize families of compounds that are structurally similar to each other, and then coax them to crystallize. This step is mostly an art. Many molecules are reluctant to form nicely ordered solid patterns. Others can form multiple crystalline patterns, sometimes simultaneously within the same container. If a large enough crystal forms, then the students record its X-ray diffraction pattern, which can be interpreted to create a 3-D diagram of how molecules are packed.

This type of work addresses questions about what rules nature follows. The answers eventually will enable chemists to make predictions and, possibly, to engineer properties into new materials. For example, it can be beneficial for drug design and the formulation of medicines reach their targets more efficiently.

After her first summer of working alongside Ojala in his lab, Brianna Vickerman ’16 found the research so engaging that she switched her major to chemistry.

“It quickly became clear to me how much I enjoyed working at the benchtop and running reactions,” Vickerman said. “I enjoyed asking questions and trying to answer them. I realized that the discovery and acquisition of knowledge was what drew me to chemistry in the first place, and I knew a futurecareer performing research was a perfect fit for me.”

MAKING NEW MATERIALS

On the other side of the hall is professor Eric Fort’s lab. His research students are usually the first to arrive around 8 a.m. They switch on the radio as they put on their lab coats, complete with the group’s own logo. The lab is not big, just large enough to fit a Chevy Suburban, if there were no furniture. Equipment hums; a large machine made of metal and glass spinning parts has liquid dripping inside.

Fort’s group specializes in synthetic organic chemistry. Some of the students in the lab pursue new pathways to making organic compounds containing boron and nitrogen atoms in place of two adjacent carbon atoms.

This substitution is theoretically possible because the bonds that hold the framework of atoms together depend on the number of electrons that the atoms have available to share, but changes the configuration from (4+4) to (3+5).

The new compound should have some of the same properties as the original structure, but its electronic properties are likely to be significantly different. The resulting material may have interesting electronic or optical behavior that could possibly lead to new electronic devices. However, assembling those structures in the lab takes a great deal of skill and creativity. Some of Fort’s other students are trying to find practical and inexpensive ways to convert abundant compounds extracted agricultural products into versatile commercial materials such as plastics.

Next door, in professor Tess Guino-o’s lab, a large stainless steel box that looks like a prop from an early “Star Trek” episode cannot be ignored. On one side of the box is a large glass window from which two enormous rubber gloves project into the room as though they were about to envelop all passersby in a big hug. Guino-o’s students explain that this is a glove box for preparing compounds from air-sensitive reagents. The system operates in a slightly elevated pressure of nitrogen gas to keep out air. It’s this pressure that pushes the gloves (that students use to manipulate things inside the box) out into the room. (Her students advise against shaking hands with the rubber gloves; they think its corny.)

Guino-o’s students make novel metal-containing compounds. In particular, some of her students make special organic molecules called ligands that are designed to cling to specific metal atoms. The metals that the students are using are known as the rare earth elements. One of their particularly appealing traits is that many rare earth elements will emit light after being stimulated to absorb light of a completely different color. This behavior is known as fluorescence, but the rare earth elements tend to emit light of a distinct pattern.

The role of the ligands is to gather more light from the stimulating light source and transfer it to the metal. By themselves, the rare earth metals are inefficient at the light-gathering step, whereas the energy gathered by the organic ligand makes the emission from the metal more intense and easier to detect. The ligand also can provide other benefits, such as making the rare earth complex more soluble or providing a point for attaching the complex to an important molecule that one might want to tag and track, such as a protein or a piece of DNA.

Professor Tom Ippoliti’s students also synthesize new compounds, including potentially useful pharmaceuticals. Because bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, the creation of new antibacterial agents is a major public health concern. Ippoliti’s group uses synthetic strategies to build compounds that are similar to well-known antibiotics, but with a twist. For example, one team has been synthesizing a molecule similar to the antibiotic known as Zyvox.

Their synthesis produces the same core as Zyvox but varies the structure of a pendant piece. Previous studies have shown that the core framework is the key to the potency of the original drug, so the rationale behind this project is that changing the other half of the molecule may disguise the medicine so that the bacteria’s defense mechanism does not recognize it and the drug continues to work. The drug maker Eli Lilly has tested compounds made by Ippoliti’s group in the past. They routinely test each new candidate from Ippoliti’s lab for a wide range of activity, not just for the purpose for which the compound was made. In fact, an earlier project produced a compound that failed as an antibiotic, but appears to have real promise as an anti-diabetes compound.

Kris Wammer’s group studies the pathways by which pharmaceuticals and pesticides decompose in the environment. Many of these products get flushed into the municipal sewage system but are not removed by the wastewater treatment process. Consequently, they end up in lakes, rivers and other natural bodies of water. Biologically active compounds may lead to unintended consequences, such as antibioticresistant bacteria or disruption of the reproductive processes of organisms that live in the water.

In order to study the chemical fate of these manmade compounds in the environment, student Danielle Webb ’16 has been looking at the degradation of a pharmaceutical compound induced by light from the sun using a solar simulator (rather than depend on daylight and good weather). Each of her test tubes contains the same dilute solution of a common pharmaceutical. She places her test tubes in a special cabinet containing a bank of light bulbs whose emission closely matches the spectrum of the sun. At specified intervals Webb removes a tube and measures the amount of pharmaceutical remaining in the solution using an instrument called an HPLC that separates the components of a mixture. Exposure to the light degrades the pharmaceutical so that its signal decreases on the HPLC plot, and a new signal appears from the degradation product. Further analysis using a mass spectrometric detector enables Webb to identify its structure.

Jamie Byrnes ’12, who is now a Ph.D. student in biochemistry at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, began working in Wammer’s lab as a first-year student, said his experience fostered an appreciation for research.

“I was dead set on becoming a medical doctor when I entered the biochemistry program at St. Thomas,” Byrnes said. “However, I had always harbored an interest in basic scientific research. … I enjoyed driving my own research project, making new discoveries and discussing exciting science with not only Dr. Wammer but also other students and professors in the Chemistry Department.”

Downstairs, students in professor Justin Donato’s research group have the luxury of spreading throughout the entire biochemistry teaching lab to do their work. The group has been using a technique called metagenomics as a way of searching for new genes in bacteria.

Bacteria have evolved the ability to control an extraordinary array of chemical processes through protein catalysts called enzymes. The DNA sequence of the genes holds the code for building these proteins.

One of Donato’s students, Bridget McGivern ’17, explains that only about 1 percent of all bacteria can be cultured in the lab. However, metagenomic tools make it possible to study the DNA from all bacteria by extracting bacterial DNA from a sample, such as a gram of soil. Using special enzymes, the DNA is chopped up and random pieces are inserted into fresh E. coli bacteria. After incorporating the foreign DNA, these bacteria are able to grow in culture dishes in the lab.

Careful screening techniques are applied to find and select E. coli cells with new attributes, such as resistance to a specific antibiotic. Because the students know the precise location on the host’s DNA where the foreign DNA is incorporated, they can use enzymes that act as molecular scissors to cut out and recover the gene that confers the new capabilities to the modified cells. They apply a technique for reading the sequence of coding units and search databases to see if that gene has ever been observed before.

Occasionally, they find a gene that has never been described in the literature and that is a cause for celebration. Such discoveries contribute to other avenues of research in evolution, protein diversity, drug design, antibiotic treatments, and sometimes lead to fermentation processes for making commercially useful molecules.

NOVEL DNA AND DRUG DELIVERY

Back upstairs, professor Tom Marsh’s group studies knot-like structures, called G-quartets, that form in certain sequences of DNA. These may play a role in communication between genes and the protein-building apparatus in the cell. These knots are particularly stable and also may help keep chromosomes from fraying at the ends. Because of their stability, Marsh’s group is investigating how to control artificial structures that they create in the lab based on G-quartets. These wire-like segments might eventually provide frameworks for assembling ultra-small mechanical or electronic devices.

Marsh’s group also is investigating a possible therapeutic application of DNA G-quartets in collaboration with students in professor Lisa Prevette’s lab. These G-quartet structures may cause protein synthesis in cancer cells to stall out. A targeted uptake of these special agents may slow the growth of tumor cells and conceivably could be used together with milder methods (compared to current chemotherapies) designed to eliminate the cancer cells.

Getting the G-quartet structures to the inside of a cancer cell draws on the work of Prevette’s lab, that focuses on mechanisms by which molecules cross cell walls. Living cells have evolved sophisticated border control, so that large drug molecules or electrically charged species such as DNA require special chaperone agents to penetrate a cell wall. Prevette’s group has been studying the strength with which DNA and chaperone molecules bind to each other and to cell membranes by recording the tiny amounts of heat released or absorbed when these reagents are mixed.

Together, the two teams are working on ways to deliver the G-quartet DNA to the inside of cancer cells. They hope to elucidate the rules of engagement in a few systems so that designing drug delivery or DNA therapy systems will be a more effective and rational process in the future.

QUANTUM CALCULATIONS AND OUTER SPACE

Students often spill out of Prevette’s lab into the computer lab next door. This room is also the home base for the theoreticians in the department. Professor Josh Layfield’s students model reactions and other processes with computational techniques known as molecular mechanics and quantum mechanics.

Good models help make predictions about chemical reactions and can save time and effort in the lab by avoiding unfruitful experiments. They also reveal critical steps in a chain of events, lending insight into many different aspects of chemistry such as how to make a reaction produce higher yield or create more stable materials.

One student has been modeling collision processes that occur in a special type of mass spectrometer to help explain the steps that lead to the fragments that are observed during an experiment. Learning the pathways by which known molecules fragment will help chemists interpret fragmentation patterns and identify unknown molecules in the future.

In another project, quantum calculations are being used to predict microwave emission from molecules that are present in interstellar space. The energy at which this emission occurs can be characteristic of the generating molecule’s structure. Because many molecules in space cannot be easily made in the lab, the only way to identify some compounds in space is by calculating the spectra from theory.

However, to do a rigorous analysis takes unreasonable amounts of computer processing time, even though the students send their calculations to the groups’ own powerful computer cluster. One of Layfield’s students has been working on streamlining the process by using a simplified model for part of the calculation. The hypothesis is that parameters from the simplified model may be applicable to calculations for spectra of other molecules.

CREATING NEW ANALYTICAL METHODS

Two rooms at the end of the hallway house larger instruments that are shared by everyone in the department. The analytical research students working with professor Tony Borgerding and myself spend a lot of time here.

Many of Borgerding’s students develop new methods of analysis that use a separation technique such as the HPLC used in Wammer’s lab. Others have explored new modes of sampling that provide an advantage over current approaches. For example, Borgerding’s students have been exploring the use of a specially modified tiny glass tube (about the size of a human hair) that can be inserted into a solution or even biological tissue to extract tiny amounts of volatile compounds that can be fed directly into an analytical instrument. Such a device could make possible real-time monitoring of drugs and important metabolites in a living system.

My students have been working with analytical tools based on light. Several students have been trying to merge fluorescence spectroscopy with a microscope. Although many biological studies exploit fluorescent molecules to provide contrast or quality images of specific subcellular structures, measuring the content of a compound of interest within a single cell is still fraught with errors.

Students in my lab have been exploring methods for circumventing those problems. Their instrument was built by students and sports some unique advantages. The ability of their instrument to measure light from the sample at multiple wavelengths provides an opportunity to correct for some of the limitations of other methods.

Most students agree that their research experience has given them an appreciation for the challenges of doing science well, and also more confidence in their own abilities to answer questions based on data and critical thinking. That is a big part of becoming a scientist. ■

Please remember in your prayers Stanley Zarambo, who died Wednesday, Nov. 16. He was the father of Susan Zarambo, School of Engineering staff member.

A Mass of Christian burial took place Monday, Nov. 21, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph of the Lakes Catholic Church in Lino Lakes. Memorials preferred to Holy Trinity Lithuanian Catholic Church in Hartford, Connecticut, or a charity of your choice.

There is a gap in the achievement of a bachelor’s degree for low-income, underserved students.

A bachelor’s degree can be a gateway to higher salaries and higher career potential.

For underserved students, it can be difficult to matriculate directly into a four-year degree program due to:

Lack of individualized academic and social support

Lack of mentors

Lack of financial means

St. Thomas believes we can help move these students forward to make attainment of a four-year degree possible.

How does a two-year college fit with the mission of St. Thomas?

St. Thomas was founded by Archbishop John Ireland in 1885 to give working-class and immigrant communities access to rigorous, values-centered education.

By launching a two-year college targeting low-income populations who currently are underserved, St. Thomas continues the vision set by Archbishop Ireland by striving to meet the needs of people desiring to better their lives through hard work and education.

The two-year college aligns beautifully with our commitment to expand access, reduce student debt and contribute to reducing the college education attainment gap in Minnesota.

Why does Minneapolis/St. Paul need another two-year degree?

The Twin Cities has many high-quality two-year technical/vocational degree programs, and this college is not looking to replicate that. The St. Thomas two-year college was conceived to offer an alternative pathway to increase achievement of a four-year degree for underserved populations.

Minnesota’s workforce is shrinking even as the labor needs of area employers are rising. Many of the jobs in Minnesota require a four-year degree. In fact, Minnesota ranks 10th in the country for the percentage of jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree (source: Georgetown Center on Education and Workforce).

Adults with bachelor’s degrees experience lower unemployment rates and higher median yearly income than adults with only a high school diploma. In the Twin Cities, adults with bachelor’s degrees make $22,332 more than adults with high school diplomas (source: census.gov).

Yet only one-third of young adults obtain a four-year degree. Less than 25 percent of students from families with annual incomes less than $10,000 earned bachelor’s degrees within six years, compared with nearly two-thirds of those with incomes of greater than $150,000 (source: Chronicle of Higher Education, “Engine of Inequality,” Jan. 17, 2016).

Various barriers contribute to a lower achievement of a four-year degree for underserved populations including financial, academic and social support.

Is St. Thomas bringing something new or just more competition to the existing market?

We are filling a unique space by providing specific academic and social support to enable low-income, underserved populations to achieve a four-year degree.

Our learning model and overall approach is distinctive in our market. We believe the targeted student population for our two-year program would benefit from personalized academic and social support, structured and intense mentoring, and a smaller, cohort-learning community that will prepare them to achieve their four-year degree

We are targeting 300 students on an ongoing basis so our total number would be well below a number that could significantly cannibalize other programs.

Who is eligible to apply?

Our Associate of Arts degree program is best suited to recent high school graduates of very limited financial means who have a desire to earn a bachelor’s degree but need more academic and social support to achieve their dream.

We will deliberately build classes and cohorts through a selective, holistic admissions process based on the following specific student profile:

High level of financial need, e.g., students whose family income would make them eligible for Pell and/or state grants

GPA 2.5 and above

ACT optional admissions

Students who demonstrate an attitude of college readiness in their written narrative and interview process, as well as perseverance, resilience and a commitment to achieving personal goals

Who should not apply?

Students who need evening classes.

Students who want a technical/vocational degree.

Student who want to earn an Associate of Arts with a specific pre-major emphasis (we only offer an AA-Liberal Arts).

Students who don’t want a structured cohort-learning environment.

Students who are not interested in pursuing a four-year degree.

What are the benefits of our two-year college?

Structured, holistic and intensive academic mentoring and advising.

Relatively little financial debt upon graduation.

Strong learning community of a maximum of 300 students.

Cohort model of instruction.

Academic and social support services (e.g., tutoring and personal counseling).

Culturally responsive pedagogy in all classes.

Small class sizes (maximum class size of 25 students).

Paid internships with regional employers to develop professional and life skills, foster community engagement and financial freedom.

Metro transit passes, laptop computers and meal plans provided.

Access to all St. Thomas clubs, intramural sports, athletic facilities with an opportunity to create other student clubs and organizations.

Why shouldn’t St. Thomas encourage applicants to just apply to its four-year program?

We believe the intended target of our two-year program requires extra academic and social support, structured and intensive mentoring, the benefit of a smaller community and a cohort-learning model to unlock their potential to ultimately achieve a four-year degree.

Are we creating a school similar to one of the Minnesota State campuses with a broad range of offerings?

The St. Thomas two-year college is a highly targeted program designed to reach a specific population with a specific end goal in mind (a four-year degree).

With full capacity of 300, the reach of this program does not compare with the 10,000-plus student bodies that Minnesota State campuses serve.

Is this a marketing ploy to get the two-year degree recipients to apply to the St. Thomas four-year program post graduation?

We specifically have built the program so graduates will have the needed requirements to choose from different options for four-year programs. Of course we would love for them to choose St. Thomas, but we did not design the core curriculum to replicate two of the four years of St. Thomas’ bachelor’s curriculum. We understand that graduates will want to look at all their options and we have designed the two-year core curriculum to maximize their opportunities.

Many employers want students with specific technical skills. Why did St. Thomas choose to offer an Associate of Arts degree instead of technical degrees?

Technical programs require scope and scale to offer sufficient options to students. The small size of our program (300 total students) would not allow us to provide enough options to make offering technical degrees feasible. Further, our ultimate goal is helping underserved students achieve a bachelor’s degree. Students who believe that a two-year degree is sufficient to get them started in their chosen profession should choose a different option than St. Thomas’ Associate of Arts degree.

Why is this program being held on the Minneapolis campus and not in St. Paul?

Greater access to internship and employment opportunities in the downtown business district.

More class space.

Two-year Tommie students will have access to all activities/events on St. Paul and will be welcomed into our community just like our four-year Tommies.

How is our program different from Arrupe?

We are grateful for the example of Arrupe and the chance to benefit from their learning as an in-market program entering year two. We are also very grateful to the leadership of Arrupe for generously sharing that learning.

The St. Thomas program was built with different elements.

For starters, it has been built with existing courses from the St. Thomas undergraduate curriculum.

Our cohort of students also attend classes together for the entire day and follow the same fall/spring semester schedule our four-year students use (Arrupe students attend either morning or evening classes year-round).

We also are building a professional development/internship program to pair students with corporate and community partners.

Does our two-year college dilute the value of our four-year degree?

It is a different and new degree for St. Thomas. The ultimate goal is for the two-year college students to obtain their bachelor’s degree because we believe that the bachelor’s degree has value.

The two-year college courses will be subject to the same evaluation criteria and standards as our four-year classes.

While the academic profile of the two-year college incoming students in the beginning is likely to be lower than our four-year students, their commitment to hard work and a successful outcome will be the same. These are students for whom without the St. Thomas two-year degree they would not have achieved a four-year degree. We are preparing these students for successful entry into four-year degree programs where they can succeed and flourish alongside students who started originally at a four-year college.

Will the two-year college siphon off funds from the four-year college?

One of the criteria for board approval and presidential support is that it must be self-sustaining. A 10-year financial model has been built that does not take operating funds from other colleges or units.

Support for the two-year college has been solicited from donors specifically interested in funding an initiative like this.

Can a student eligible for our four-year college choose to apply to the two-year college instead to get tuition savings?

Students able to matriculate directly into our four-year college should apply directly to our four-year program. The two-year college is intended for students who would not be able to directly matriculate into a four-year program.

The student profile for the two-year college is quite distinct from our four-year college in that we are looking to support students with a demonstrated need for supplemental financial, academic and social support in order to successfully achieve a bachelor’s degree.

Why does the two-year college cost $15,000 per year, which is less than half the annual cost of our four-year college?

St. Thomas built the two-year program to fit the financial model of revenue from Pell/state grants, St. Thomas scholarships and a minimum of $1,000 student contribution. Every decision reflected the need to stay within this model as the financial mandate of the two-year college is to operate at breakeven.

The two-year college provides a very limited and prescribed curriculum, which can be offered at a lower price. The students do not have the variety of courses that are offered in the four-year college. Because it enrolls only 300 students, has fewer faculty, fewer course offerings, it is less expensive.

The two-year college takes advantage of existing surplus facility space on our Minneapolis location, thereby saving St. Thomas $6 million+ if new facilities had to be built.

How will we measure success?

Student retention and graduation rates and ultimately the number of students going on and completing four-year degrees. Initially we expect at least an 80 percent retention rate from first to second year.

Associate of Arts curriculum evaluated to be equivalent to the standards of St. Thomas courses.

Achievement of breakeven financial model.

Will the students be able to get jobs if they choose not to continue to a four-year school because they’re not getting vocational training?

While we hope that our students will go on to achieve four-year degrees, the Associate of Arts degree is a marketable credential for a student’s resume and represents an important milestone in achieving academic, professional and personal success.

The Associate of Arts degree signals to employers that the degree holder has advanced skills in communication and critical thinking skills – skills that are paramount for success in today’s workplace. The degree gives the recipients the foundation for acquiring new knowledge and to adapting to change in the work environment.

Will two-year college students be eligible to play on Division III sports teams?

No, but students can participate fully in undergraduate activities like intramural sports and have full use of St. Thomas facilities. Students will pay an undergrad activities fees.

Will the two-year college entrance academic statistics be combined with the four-year entrance statistics and therefore negatively impact our national rankings in publications like U.S. News & World Report?

Rankings that cover four-year colleges strictly will be looking at statistics that apply to those programs.

Is the two-year college a diversity initiative for St. Thomas?

Consistent with our mission and convictions, St. Thomas highly values diversity among our students, faculty and staff. We will continue to pursue diversity within and among each of our programs, schools and colleges, and diversity statistics for the two-year college will not be reported in combination with statistics for our four-year college.

The two-year college ties directly to the St. Thomas Strategic Plan initiative of finding alternative pathways to higher education.

Dr. Shersten Johnson, Music Department, College of Arts and Sciences, presented a paper titled “Performance Gestures and Idealized Listening in the Met’s Pasquale HD Production” at the International Conference on Music Gesture and Creative Interface in Porto, Portugal.

Kari Zimmerman

Dr. Kari Zimmerman, History Department, College of Arts and Sciences, wrote “As Pertaining to the Female Sex: The Legal and Social Norms of Female Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,” which was published in the Hispanic American Historical Review. The article argues that women owned and operated businesses equivalent to their male colleagues, despite the social constraints of their patriarchal society.

Ten students from the University of St. Thomas’ Chemistry Department, College of Arts and Sciences, presented their research April 29 at the 2016 Minnesota Academy of Sciences Winchell Symposium. The following students presented posters: Anna Folska,”Analyzing the Different Membrane Interactions of Cell-Penetrating Peptides,” Hannah Ganzel,”Binding Affinity of PAH-Coated Au Nanoparticles to Gram Positive Cell Walls” and Stephanie Surma, “Effect of Molecular Weight and Conjugation Ratio of PEGylated PAMAM Copolymers on DNA Affinity and Complex Aggregation” (mentored by Dr. Lisa Prevette); Evan Kalb, “Attenuation of Supramolecular G-DNA Through Fluorescent Ligands” and Jen Fitgerald, Maddy Riemenschnieder and Hailley Cound, “The Effect of a Completely Animal-Free MRS Medium on Lactobacillus Acidophilus Growth” (mentored by Dr. Thomas Marsh). The following students gave oral presentations: Francesca Ippoliti, “Synthesis and Characterization of Three Oleoyl-PEG Orthoester Micelles for Drug Delivery” (mentored by Dr. Lisa Prevette); Evan Kalb, “In vivo Tracking of Supramolecular G-DNA Through Fluorescent Ligands” (mentored by Dr. Thomas Marsh); Thomas Tuohy, “Novel Synthesis of Tetra-arylsubstituted Furan Molecules” (mentored by Dr. J. Thomas Ippoliti); and Theresa Pham, “Routes Toward Lanthanum(III) Triazolylidene Complex” (mentored by Dr. Marites Guino-o). Two of our students received special recognition for the quality of their work: Kalb won the Lee I. Smith Award for Excellence in Chemistry for his poster presentation and Ippoliti won a Top Oral Presentation award in Chemistry.

A Mass of Christian burial for Steven Hoffman will be held at 10:30 a.m. Monday, Nov. 30, in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas. The campus will toll the chimes at 10:25 a.m. prior to the Mass and ask for a moment of silence in honor of Hoffman.

A reception with light refreshments will follow at 11:45 a.m. in James B. Woulfe Alumni Hall, located on the third floor of the Anderson Student Center. At the reception, attendees will have the opportunity to express their condolences to Hoffman’s family.

A team of eight St. Thomas math students took first place at the sixth annual Math Jeopardy! competition held at Augsburg College on Nov. 2. Teams from Augsburg, Concordia and Macalester also competed.

Join libraries and readers across the United States by celebrating Banned Books Week from Sept. 27-Oct. 3. The St. Thomas Libraries have an online guide to navigating the world of challenged books, including information on which books are the most challenged, why and by whom; a space to converse about challenged or banned books; and a trivia contest. Displays also are up in O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library and Charles J. Keffer Library.

Banned Books Week, which celebrates the freedom to read, was first started in 1982.

Andrea Koeppe, the research and instruction librarian who has helped with Banned Books Week for more than 10 years at St. Thomas, said a huge part of the week is just reminding people that attempts to ban books still happen today.

“People think about these things as happening in the past,” Koeppe said. “They think about Ulysses. … (They) sort of equate, ‘Oh, but that was such a long time ago! It’s 2015. It doesn’t happen now.’ Yes, it does.”

According to the St. Thomas Libraries’ guide on challenged and banned books, 35 percent of books are challenged by parents, and the most common reasons are: unsuited for a certain age group, sexually explicit material, offensive language, and religious viewpoint. Racism, sexism and homosexuality are reasons listed as well.

“I understand that what parents – individual parents – chose for their family (is) definitely well within their right,” Koeppe said. “When people try to take that a step further and try to tell me and my family, or anybody’s family, what to do, it’s a really ugly undercurrent.”

Typically, a book is challenged in an effort to have it removed from a library and limit access to it. Because these books often cover material that can be considered controversial, Koeppe said it’s important to keep them around because they may help spur vital conversations about those hard-to-talk-about issues.

“Have those conversations,” Koeppe said. “Go out of your way to have those conversations. Go out of your way to find out what these books are about. … If a conversation is difficult to have, then maybe it’s one worth having.”

Check out some of St. Thomas staff and faculty member’s favorite challenged books:

Andrea Koeppe: Judy Blume’s books, particularly Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. “I grew up reading a lot of those. … I was exactly at that age. I could so have so easily been that person where a librarian or some school teacher said, ‘No, this is not appropriate for you. I don’t want you to read this.'”

Shannon Scott, adjunct professor of English: Lady Chatterly’s Lover D.H. Lawrence. “I remember when I first read this novel as an undergraduate, I didn’t expect much in terms of scandalous sexuality – it seemed like I would witness more ‘pornographic’ material simply by turning on network TV. And yet I was surprised by the frank, tender and gently humorous love-making scenes that occur between Connie and Mellors. … It was scandalous in way that forced me to reconsider the depth of human relations.”

Lisa Guyott, director of marketing and communication at the Opus College of Business: Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. “I’m likely only one of several thousand teenagers who spent at least a year carrying Catcher in the Rye around in her backpack, wondering how the brilliance of Holden Caulfield could possibly be overlooked by his friends, teachers and family. In turns offering both confidence, bravado and despair, the book captures the essence of youth, the tightrope walk between knowing it all and knowing absolutely nothing. Holden is lonely, but shuns groups; he wants to be an adult, but is too naïve to understand the complexities of adulthood (seeing adults, of course, as ‘phonies.’); he wants to be seen as unique, but craves acceptance. It captures, as though written by a 16-year-old, the tentative foray into adulthood and the quick retreat that follows, leaving the reader with the overwhelming need to whisper, ‘Yes, yes, exactly, that’s it.’“

Liz Wilkinson, associate professor of English: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. “Alexie is a great and beautifully controversial voice in Native literature specifically and in American literature, today. In The Absolutely True Diary… he creates the complicated world of a Native American teenager, who chooses to leave his reservation school for the education he can receive at the white high school off reservation. While the focus is on Arnold (aka Junior), the narrator and main character of the novel, the supporting characters provide a complex glimpse into a world few know. While it is fiction, Alexie has talked about how much of it has been drawn from his own experiences.”

Kate Norlander, associate director of communication services: The Harry Potter series. “It’s hard for me to pick my favorite banned book, but the Harry Potter series is high on my list. (Note that I picked a series of seven books.) J.K. Rowling’s books came out when I was an adult, but they enchant me every bit as much as they would have if I had encountered them as a child. Rowling is one of those people who can craft a world you wish you could live in. There’s no doubt in my mind that children – and adults – will still be reading these books in 2047, 50 years after the first book was published. “

It’s 11:14 a.m. on a summer Tuesday, and St. Thomas professors are getting schooled.

Room 102 of the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library is buzzing with conversation as 19 professors discuss the pros and cons of a theoretical art history assignment rubric. Theology Department chair Bernard Brady talks with Sonia Rey-Montejo of the Spanish Department and Kari Fletcher from the School of Social Work. Their group’s interdisciplinary representation is typical on this second day of their week-long workshop; professors from theology, art history, social work, English, Spanish, management and business law are in the room together. They’re all there for one purpose: to get WAC-ed.

Despite sounding the same as the mafia phrase, this kind of getting whacked is a good thing; faculty are being trained to teach Writing Across the Curriculum courses, which – starting this fall with the freshmen class – will be part of the St. Thomas core curriculum requirement for students to graduate. Incoming students will need to take a minimum of four WAC classes: at least two Writing Intensive courses (one of which can be an English class), one Writing to Learn course and one Writing in Your Discipline course.

“We’re trying at St. Thomas to create strong, flexible writers,” said Erika Scheurer, English professor and director of the Writing Across the Curriculum program at St. Thomas.

Transitioning WAC to a core requirement for students underlines the institution’s dedication to creating strong, flexible writers and also more critical thinkers, two things WAC proponents have found go hand in hand.

“This is not just for English majors. As a business major I have to effectively communicate things from a business perspective. If I can’t write, if I can’t explain that, I can’t do my job,” Matt Wagner ’15 said. “The value of strong writing doesn’t just stop at an English major. The ability to write from an intelligent perspective and know what you’re talking about is invaluable to every student.”

Left to right, Arijit Mazumdar, assistant professor of political science; Joshua Stuchlik, assistant professor of philosophy; and Kathleen Heinlen, instructor of English, talk at a Writing Across the Curriculum seminar. The Writing Across the Curriculum program focuses on developing strong writing elements for courses and educators through interdisciplinary dialogue and training. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Bringing WAC to St. Thomas

WAC as an academic movement has been around for several decades and centers on the idea that written communication is not something that should be pigeon-holed to English teaching; it should be infused throughout every discipline.

“I always use this analogy of speaking: I’m not an expert in speaking, I didn’t do my Ph.D. in a communications department, but does that mean I should not use speaking? I wouldn’t say, ‘That’s just for the communication people.’ Everyone’s a writer, everyone uses written communication,” said Chris Anson, director of North Carolina State University’s Campus Writing and Speaking Program and a WAC consultant around the country. “Everyone has a responsibility to use written language, and well.”

Anson has come to St. Thomas twice a year since 2009, teaching St. Thomas faculty how to use WAC principles in their classes. His first seminar came about after a St. Thomas curriculum review in the mid-2000s called for further emphasis on writing, which eventually led to the faculty senate’s approval of Scheurer heading up a WAC program on campus.

Since 2009 nearly 250 faculty members have gone through Anson and Scheurer’s seminars (plus the dozen or so smaller seminars Scheurer coordinates every semester) and transitioned their own courses to WAC status. So, thousands of Tommies already have taken WAC courses. Making a certain number of them a core requirement for students is just the next step in the pedagogy’s development at St. Thomas.

“The basis of the whole program is faculty development, so we’ve needed faculty to go through this seminar to certify them to teach WAC courses,” Scheurer said. “The time was right, now, and we’ve got enough faculty members to teach sections and meet the requirement. That’s why it’s been six years to get to this point.”

Erika Scheurer, associate professor of English and director of the Writing Across the Curriculum program, right, talks with Chris Anson, a distinguished professor at North Carolina State University and Writing Across the Curriculum expert at a seminar. (Photo by Mark Brown)

“Scaffolding”

WAC pedagogy is built on several pillars of thought. The most prominent are that writing should be emphasized across all disciplines and areas of studies; that writing increases the ability to learn material and think critically about it; and that writing should be structured in a way that uses smaller tasks and goals to scaffold upward toward larger ones. These tenets take many forms and can be tailored to suit different disciplines (WAC principles might look different, say, in a theology course as opposed to a biology course), but writing can ground all types of learning.

“This is really about thinking. It sounds like it’s all about writing, but it’s not. It’s about using writing to get students to think,” said management faculty Teresa Rothausen.

Beyond the strategic principles that guide WAC, faculty also learn many tactical approaches that help them accomplish their larger goals. Among these are guidelines for creating more explicit expectations and rubrics for students so they know what the goals of assignments and courses are; providing better, more strategic feedback that isn’t based just on grammar, but on overall development; and using “low stakes” writing assignments that lead toward and inform “high stakes” assignments, so students build skills and ideas as they work through a semester, a process Scheurer calls “scaffolding.”

“You can’t just expect them to know all this stuff. You have to give them a structure, a scaffolding, and teach them some of this stuff to expect it to show up on their writing,” said engineering assistant professor Brittany Nelson-Cheeseman. “It’s very much creating a nurturing environment and supporting your students so they can write better. We’re not just expecting them to be amazing writers; we’re nurturing them, going through drafts, so it’s not just, ‘Turn this paper in,’ at the end of the semester and hoping for the best.”

Brittany Nelson-Cheeseman, assistant professor of engineering, talks with a fellow faculty member at a Writing Across the Curriculum seminar. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Unique program at St. Thomas

Scheurer pointed to engineering as an example of what she hopes will be part of the future for WAC at St. Thomas: faculty scaffolding not just individual courses, but their entire department. Nelson-Cheeseman and other engineering faculty formed their own WAC committee and have worked to structure – based off what each is doing in his or her own classes – a system that sees students increasing writing skills and levels from their freshman through their senior years.

“It’s a great way as a program … that we can have all these parts there and build off each other, but spread it out between us so we’re not trying to do too much individually,” Nelson-Cheeseman said.

That kind of saturation could become more available as departments have more and more faculty “get WAC-ed,” and St. Thomas’ overall model should help make such high-level scaffolding possible. That’s due in large part because of the different categories St. Thomas has adopted: Writing Intensive, Writing to Learn and Writing in Your Discipline.

“Everywhere I go I’m constantly talking about St. Thomas because of the system you’ve had here, which is the orientation of three different choices. That’s unique. I’ve never seen that anywhere else in the country,” Anson said. “The option is there for professors who may have a larger course and can do a Writing to Learn course so there’s not so much pressure on them, as opposed to a senior-level capstone that’s Writing in the Discipline, as opposed to a more general Writing Intensive course. It helps buy-in and the faculty to say, ‘There’s some flexibility here.’ It’s a model of how to do this in a flexible way.”

Sociology professor Tanya Gladney assists students with their research projects during her class in O’Shaughnessy Educational Center. (Photo by Mike Ekern)

Creativity breeding accessibility

Throughout each of those three levels, Scheurer said one of the most important things for a WAC course is to have goals laid out for what should be accomplished and how assignments strategically align with those goals. Oftentimes this involves being more explicit with students about why they’re being asked to do certain things, which studies have shown is positively associated with overall learning, Anson said.

“It makes you more conscious of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. What is the point of an assignment? It’s something students sometimes wonder. I think this helps change things that could have been more busywork into something meaningful,” said Eric Kjellgren, an art history professor who completed the WAC seminar in June.

Intensive, To Learn and In Your Discipline courses have different goals, but can build off the goals from courses that preceded them, like the plan Nelson-Cheeseman described for engineering. Lower-stakes writing is especially usable with Intensive and To Learn courses, which open up opportunities for faculty to get creative with assignments that have less reflection on grades and are more about building skills. Theology professor Sherry Jordon is particularly well known for creating a wide range of low-stakes writing assignments to make writing – and thinking – about the world of Martin Luther and other historical theology more accessible.

“I remember once we were reading the book Year of Wonders and to help understand different characters’ positions around their beliefs in God we had to create a Facebook profile for one of the characters we were assigned,” said senior Melanie Kraemer about one of Jordon’s assignments. “(The character) would make a status update, and two other characters would have to comment using textual evidence about what their theological stances were. When you have to critically think about text and write it out in a creative way it’s a lot more helpful.”

Jordon said those kinds of assignments also help inform students’ high-stakes writing as the semester goes on. It also helps make the idea of writing consistently more accessible and less intimidating.

“A lot of people don’t like writing, or think they don’t, so when they hear, ‘Writing Across the Curriculum,’ or ‘Writing to Learn,’ it could be intimidating,” Jordon said. “Helping them understand in accessible ways what all of this is about is really helpful.”

Students discuss a writing project with professor Erika Scheurer during a combined English and theology course. (Photo by Mark Brown)

On to the core

Since WAC courses began being taught at St. Thomas in 2009, Scheurer has used surveys and other feedback from both students and faculty to gauge the value of WAC. Those results – such as a 19 percent shift in positivity toward academic writing over the course of one semester – help show why WAC has been approved to be part of the core curriculum. Other more anecdotal evidence supports the overall notion that WAC has made faculty better teachers, students better learners and St. Thomas classes more valuable.

“You create a foundation of writing to learn and build it each year, and by the time you’re a senior you can look back on all this … and you’re a better business person, or theologian, or English major, because you’ve had to dive in, think about things and explain your thoughts in a detailed matter through your writing,” said Wagner, who is now working for Willis, a risk-management firm in New York City.

“With the core and students having to take at least four WAC classes, they’re just going to take more than that,” Brady said. “We’re going to look at students coming out with six, seven, eight Writing Across the Curriculum classes. It’s going to be a very distinctive mark here at St. Thomas.”

Alejandra Chavez Rivas has never met President Barack Obama, but he certainly had young women like her in mind when he stepped into the Rose Garden on June 15, 2012, to speak about his new executive order, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

The now 25-year-old woman, born in Mexico and raised in Minnesota, is one of 1.4 million people brought into the United States illegally at a young age by their parents. As an undocumented immigrant, she always would be at risk of deportation, and that didn’t seem fair to the president.

“These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag,” Obama said. “They are Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way except one: on paper. … Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you’ve done everything right your entire life, studied hard, worked hard, maybe even graduated at the top of your class, only to suddenly face the threat of deportation to a country that you know nothing about, with a language that you may not even speak.”

Tired of waiting for Congress to pass immigration reform legislation, Obama took action on his own with DACA, which allows adults like Alejandra to remain in the United States. She obtained a Social Security number, a Minnesota driver’s license and a renewable two-year work permit.

Just as importantly, she found herself emboldened to pursue a college education. Two years later, her circuitous journey led her to the University of St. Thomas, where she has thrived, found new purpose in her life and come to realize what she once had viewed as an unattainable dream was within her reach after all.

Alejandra Chavez Rivas

“I never thought in a million years I would go to St. Thomas,” said Alejandra, who takes three classes a semester, works four jobs, cares for a 5-year-old daughter and has a two-hour round-trip commute to school every weekday. “It has been the right decision. Yes, I am tired in the morning, I work many hours and my homework load is hard. But I would not change any of it for the world.”

Alejandra was born in 1989 in Mexico City, and her parents separated when she was a toddler. Her mother was a social worker who could not find a job in her field but sold chickens and sandwiches to make ends meet. She decided in 1993 to move with her two sons and Alejandra to Minnesota, where they would live with her parents.

They flew from Guadalajara to Tijuana, where a man hired by Alejandra’s grandfather smuggled them across the border. The harrowing experience – hiding in fields, waiting in ditches and running across a highway – “made us fear for our lives,” her mother said, “but I was determined to have a better life for myself and the children.”

Reunited in Minnesota, the extended family lived first in Crystal before moving to Monticello in 1999, when Alejandra’s father rejoined them. He since has worked in a factory, and her grandparents returned to Mexico several years ago after retirement. Her brothers also have returned to Mexico; one went on his own and the other was deported after a DWI arrest.

Alejandra graduated from Monticello High School in 2008. She grew up knowing she was a Mexican citizen but wasn’t knowledgeable about her status as an undocumented immigrant until she was 15. She couldn’t obtain a driver’s license because, not having been born in the United States, she didn’t have a Social Security number.

“We kept ourselves in the shadows,” she said. “We stayed out of trouble and never had any issues with the law. Once I was 15, my mom told me, ‘You can’t tell people your background. Just tell them you are from here.’ I spoke perfect English and no accent, so I fit right in.”

Alejandra’s first job was doing front-desk work at a community center. She made plans to attend the University of Minnesota in hopes of becoming a doctor, but weeks before classes began she learned she was pregnant.

“My mind was consumed with the thought of becoming a single mother,” she later wrote in an essay. “The father of my child did not want anything to do with me. I would have to raise my child on my own. My relationship with my parents was so distant that I kept my pregnancy a secret. I had no idea what my future would hold. I could not disappoint my parents any more, so I kept it all in and tried to figure things out on my own. I was scared for my future, angry because I had never felt so alone, and frustrated that I let myself get this far.”

Alejandra considered adoption or even abortion before, “for some reason – a beautiful, mysterious reason – my child became my everything,” she wrote. Her parents learned of her pregnancy and, while initially shocked and angry, told her they were happy they would be grandparents. They also insisted she enroll in a community college, saying her daughter should not be “an obstacle, but my motivation.”

She took courses at Anoka-Ramsey Community College before giving birth in April 2009 to Daniela Alessandra, who today is a happy kindergartner living with her mother and grandparents. Alejandra continued to work, first at Aeropostale and Adidas stores and more recently at a J.C. Penney store.

But she felt she had hit a “plateau,” with little education, an unsatisfying job and an unhappy marriage in Arizona, having married in hopes of obtaining citizenship. She decided to divorce and return to Minnesota. “I needed to go and find peace,” she said, and she sought solace in faith formation courses at St. Henry’s Catholic Church in Monticello.

“She found her faith,” said Father Tony VanderLoop, pastor of St. Henry’s. “It’s amazing how young people like Alejandra find their faith when it is presented in ways that resonate with them. She has become a new person.”

A St. Henry’s catechist teacher connected Alejandra with St. Thomas alumnus Vincenzo Randazzo ’12, who worked at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in south Minneapolis. He had been involved in the St. Thomas Center for Catholic studies’ Latino Leadership Program, which now helps prepare students for confirmation at St. Stephen’s, and suggested Alejandra join a young adults group at the parish. She met other students and staff from St. Thomas, including Laura Stierman, a Catholic Studies staff member who directs the Latino program.

“I try to help lead people to our Lord,” said Randazzo, who has been a residence hall director at the University of Mary in Bismarck since September. “There’s a camaraderie at St. Stephen’s – a friendship in Christ – and Alejandra was introduced to that community.”

Stierman, Randazzo and others persuaded Alejandra she should enroll at St. Thomas. She didn’t think she could afford it, but she worked with financial aid counselors and cobbled together several scholarships from St. Thomas and St. Henry’s. She received a boost from the Minnesota Dream Act, enacted by the Legislature in 2013 to provide financial aid to undocumented students who have graduated from a Minnesota high school. More than 360 students at Minnesota colleges received Dream Act funds in 2014-15, including six at St. Thomas.

Support also came from Jean Gray ’51 who serves on the Catholic Studies board. He became aware of the Padrino (Godfather) Program, a St. Thomas-St. Stephen’s effort to match students identified as Latino leaders with people who can help cover expenses.

“I’m an old FBI agent and I worked in embassies, and I don’t approve of people passing over the border,” Gray said. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved.” He became “hooked” after reading Alejandra’s essays on rediscovering her faith and wanting to major in Catholic studies. “Here is a student who can help people, motivated by her faith. How could I not help her?”

“I have met students who have graduated from St. Thomas and the way they live their life and grow their faith in God has inspired me,” Alejandra wrote in one essay. “I have realized that with God all of my struggles up to this point have been for one single purpose and that is to serve Him because He is my rock and He has never left my side.

“I am convinced that … God has a plan for me and this opportunity to study at St. Thomas is the direction I need to be heading to help Dreamers (Dream Act students) like me who need to find the hope they have been longing for. I want to be able to be an example to other students.”

Alejandra’s first year at St. Thomas tested her in many ways – intellectually, emotionally and physically – because of an exhausting schedule. She was up by 5 every morning for the 45- mile drive to campus, where she took spring semester classes in ethics, Spanish and Catholic studies. She worked in the Catholic Studies Department two days a week, at St. Henry’s on Saturdays as coordinator of Hispanic ministry, at St. Stephen’s on Sundays with confirmation classes and at J.C. Penney 25 hours a week.

Her professors, fellow students, church workers and parents all deserve credit for helping Alejandra, but she circles back to one person when asked to describe her motivation.

“Daniela has had the most profound impact on my life,” she wrote in an essay. “Daniela is goofy; she tries wearing my clothes. Daniela is beautiful; she looks like me. Daniela is intelligent; she can speak two languages. I love my daughter intensely, inexplicably, and unconditionally. Daniela has taught me that there is no greater gift than to become a mother, and be reborn with her.”

Alejandra admits she had a “rebellious nature” as a teenager, but that she changed during her pregnancy. She took care of her body, ate appropriately and read about how to care for infants.

“My daughter became my motivation, my inspiration to change my inner and outer being,” she wrote. “The day my daughter was born will be a memory I will cherish in my heart forever. I was taken to the hospital and all I could think about was holding her in my arms. When I first saw my daughter and held her close to me I realized that God blessed me with His greatest gift. Having my heart walking outside my body was the greatest feeling, and no one could take that away from me.”

Where Alejandra once feared a new-born daughter might be an “obstacle,” she became “my greatest teacher” and “the catalyst that changed me forever.”

“My daughter has shaped me to be the person that I am today,” she wrote. “She continues to teach me to enjoy life’s greatest treasures. These are values that we should never forget. My daughter has taught me to always laugh and smile. She teaches me to be patient, to always slow down and admire the beauty that life has to offer. I strive for perfection to become the woman she will look up to and be proud of.”

Alejandra is uncertain what profession she will pursue. She remains intrigued about becoming a doctor, but reminds herself she needs to be patient and focus on her studies. She traveled to Washington, D.C., in February for a Catholic social ministry conference, and she would like to study abroad, ideally in Rome for a semester if travel restrictions for DACA students are relaxed.

Her attorney, David Wilson, a 1993 St. Thomas alumnus, calls Alejandra the “embodiment” of DACA in the ways she takes full advantage of the program. He is impressed with her drive and her aspirations and believes Obama would feel the same way.

“I believe it’s the right thing to do because I’ve been with groups of young people who work so hard and speak with so much heart about what’s best in America,” Obama said about DACA in his 2012 speech. “I know some have come forward at great risks to themselves and their futures in hopes it would spur the rest of us to live up to our own most cherished values. And I’ve seen the stories of Americans in schools and churches and communities who stood up for them and rallied behind them, and pushed us to give them a better path and freedom from fear.”

Bryana French, Ph.D., joined CELC as a faculty member in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the beginning of the 2014-15 academic year. French began her academic career at the University of Missouri, Columbia where she was joint-appointed in the Black Studies department and Counseling Psychology program. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois’ Counseling Psychology program in 2010.

“At Missouri, I did research, but realized I was most focused on teaching, advocating and mentoring students,” French said. “Here, faculty have private practices and are also more teaching-focused.”

French’s plan is to pursue licensure to become a licensed clinician, meaning she would be able to see clients while simultaneously focusing on the teaching and mentorship work she loves. She currently teaches M.A. and Psy.D. level courses in diversity issues and has taught several other courses throughout her career including African American Psychology, Violence Against Women and Children, and Qualitative Methods.

“In my classes, we are practice oriented,” French said. “I tend to think about research theories, but then use that to inform how I teach. Many of my classes are awareness-focused. We often have reflections, or participate in experiential activities like privilege walks.”

French’s research interests focus on sexual coercion and associated psychosocial outcomes among racially diverse young men and women. She has also conducted research on faith-based teen dating violence prevention and alternative educational programming for suspended youth. She holds leadership positions in the APA, including the Director of Communications and Technology for Division 17: Society of Counseling Psychology and the Member-at-Large: Racial & Ethnic Minority Slate for Division 51: Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity. She is also on the editorial board for the Journal of Black Psychology.

Bruce Gleason, Ph.D.

Bruce Gleason, Ph.D., joined CELC as the chair of the department of Teacher Education in the 2014-15 academic year. Gleason holds a Ph.D. in music education from the University of Iowa. He was formerly the Director of Graduate Programs in Music Education at St. Thomas and the Associate Chair of the Department of Music at Gordon College. He has published over fifty articles in music education and music history, and is the founding editor of the online research journal Research and Issues in Music Education.

A former euphonium player with the 298th U.S. Army Band of the Berlin Brigade, Dr. Gleason researches the history of cavalry music throughout the world and lectures in the area of band history. His research in band and music education history has been published in Music Educators Journal, Journal of Band Research, Renaissance, Winds, TUBA Journal, BDGuide, Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, The Irish American Post, MHQ: the Quarterly Journal of Military History, National Guard Magazine, Military Collector and Historian, Journal of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, The Journal of the Military Music Society, and the Galpin Society Journal. His work in pedagogy and comprehensive musicianship has been published in Kjos Band News, The Instrumentalist, School Band and Orchestra, and Contributions to Music Education.

Artika Tyner, Ed.D, M.P.P., J.D., joined CELC as a faculty member in the public policy and leadership program at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year. Inspired by the legacy of W.E.B. Dubois, she earned her Doctorate in Leadership (Ed.D.) from CELC in 2012. Prior to attaining her doctorate, she subsequently earned her J.D. and Master’s of Public Policy and Leadership here at St. Thomas.

“To be honest, I thought I was finished with schooling at law school,” Tyner said. “Lo and behold, one of the challenges I ran into is that a lot of the civil rights issues we were working on had an underlying policy issue.”

Tyner says she views education as “a tool to advance the social justice work I’m passionate about,” and her combination of experience in leadership, public policy and law reflect this passion. In March, Tyner traveled to Selma, Alabama to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery marches.

“It was transformative in a lot of ways,” Tyner said of the Selma experience. “It gave me a sense of the leadership legacy and courage of those who marched across the bridge, and connecting it to what my work will be today. I have the role of scholar, attorney, researcher, so I thought about what I am looking to build change around and the steps I will take to leave a legacy for many generations to come.”

Tyner’s most recent book, The Lawyer as Leader: How to Plant People and Grow Justice, was published by The American Bar Association. The book has been selected as a finalist for the Midwest Book Award in the category of current events/political science.

Since 2009, the University of St. Thomas has been a proud University partner of the National Black MBA – Twin Cities chapter Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT) program. UST supports the NBMBAA mission of creating educational opportunities for African Americans. Bill Woodson, Assistant Dean for MBA Programs, is a lifetime member of NBMBAA and has been an LOT mentor since 2005. Woodson recently traveled to the LOT Annual Conference and has been sharing his thoughts about the experience.

Arrested 40 times for non-violently advocating for Black Americans to have the right to vote and use public facilities, Congressman Lewis captivated our young leaders with stories of meeting and being mentored by Martin Luther King as a college student. At the time just 23 years of age, Mr. Lewis was the youngest person to share Dr. King’s podium and address the 200,000 person crowd in the 1963 March on Washington. Now 74, Congressman Lewis encouraged the young audience not to wait – through sacrifice and service they are able to make a difference right now.

Lewis in particular clearly sought to spark these high school students’ pride in their African-American heritage. He spoke with conviction and emotion about the obstacles he overcame and the impact that he and other freedom fighters were able to have, creating opportunities that our young leaders are now positioned to take advantage of. He also reminded the audience that the original thirteen freedom riders included 7 whites as well as 6 blacks, that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, and that “while our ancestors have come to this country on different ships, we are all in the same boat now.”

It was as powerful an experience for us as mentors and chaperones as it was for the students. What’s more, the lessons of leadership felt incredibly relevant, not just for African American high school students aspiring to be future business leaders, but for leaders and future leaders of every race and background.

Lewis’ testimony was also a great reminder of the importance of passion. I couldn’t have said it any better than the call and response phrase adopted for the final day of the conference:

“Leaders are…?”

“ON FIRE!!”

Woodson says this was his first experience as an LOT Conference chaperone but definitely not the last.

That was the call and response used to launch our 7:30 a.m. meeting, kicking off Day 1 of an intensive, morning-to-night four day professional development conference for – high school students. High School students? Professional development? That’s right – the National Black MBA Association, better known as the NBMBAA, host of the world’s largest corporate professional career fair and one of corporate America’s largest and best known professional development organizations, has made seeding the talent pipeline starting at the ninth grade level a top priority through its Leaders of Tomorrow program.

This was the 20 year anniversary of the program, and in a fashion suitable for a major milestone, the NBMBAA’s Leaders of Tomorrow has taken its program to another level. Billed as “…Not a Vacation… but a Boot Camp for Success,” the four day youth conference fulfilled its billing, even including a 6 a.m. high intensity professionally-led calisthenics session.

Call and response. The memory of 120 young voices responding in unison to the call "Leaders are...?" with the words "FEARLESS!!"

The student leaders came from around the country, and in total 120 African American students from 24 LOT chapters were in attendance. Their talent, youthful energy and potential were abundantly in evidence, and the LOT Conference programming team had prepared a comprehensive agenda worthy of General Electric’s renowned Crotonville Leadership Center. Inspirational and insightful presentations were provided by accomplished leaders ranging from civil rights era freedom rider Congressman John Lewis, renown R&B singer and education advocate John Legend, successful motivational speaker and published author George C. Fraser (“Success Runs in our Race”), to movie producer Will Packer (“Stomp the Yard“).

Day 1 of the 2011 NBMBAA Conference : LOT-Twin Cities students at the Clark Atlanta College Tour.

The program also included a tour of Spelman, Morehouse, Clark-Atlanta, and Emory universities, workshops on resume writing, applying to college, SAT preparation, and scholarship strategies, trips to the Georgia Aquarium and Six Flags, and national student elections. Oh, and a trip to a women’s shelter to provide two hours of community service, a visit to the Martin Luther King center, and not one but two after-parties. Not to mention daily homework study hours (after all, we were traveling on a school night) and the aforementioned early morning calisthenics.

You can imagine, not only were the student leaders “Fearless” but they were also thoroughly exhausted by the fourth and final day of the conference!

The LOT program engages African American students from around the country, as well as students of African descent from Canada and the UK. Some are exceptional scholars, while others were barely making the grade, prior to entering the program, which involves once- or twice-monthly local meetings in addition to the annual National Case Competition and the annual National Conference. Conference attendees are typically the most active and involved of the program participants. Here in Minneapolis our three students represented the roughly 40 or so students who attended at least one local Twin Cities LOT meeting this past year.

You’ve got your foot in the door at a job interivew. Things are actually going well. What a relief. Then, you’re asked, what questions do you have for us?

What do you ask? You should know everything from the website already, right? Now what?

Career Rocketeer, a career search and personal branding blog, helping ambitious career entrepreneurs to “launch” their careers to greater heights has some great ideas on “interviewing your interviewer“:

Most people, when interviewing for a new job, forget the process is supposed to be a 2-way street. It’s as important for you, as a candidate, to determine if the job, the company, the culture, and the work environment is right for you as it is for the company to determine if you’re right for them. You do yourself no favors by accepting an offer for a job that is not a good fit. It will make you miserable, your employer dissatisfied, and likely not end well.

Here’s a few examples of good questions to ask:

Where do you see someone successful in this role going next?

What personality characteristics tend to be most rewarded in this organization?

What’s the difference between successful people here and ones that only get by?

Would you say this is a very structured environment or not… can you give me examples?

What, if any, leadership traits are you looking for in this role?

There is lots more on the Career Rocketeer posting.What are some good questions you’ve asked your interviewer in job interviews?

The last month was very demanding for all full-time MBA students. We were in the last stage of our ABR projects: the quantitative analysis. We had a huge amount of data that to analyze with several statistical techniques that we learned in class.

Still, in the middle of this stress, our VP of Internal Affairs in the Student Association, Karina Korman, had time to plan a trip down the block to see a Twins game at Target Field! The Student Association provided 25 tickets to the game and on April 21 we had a wonderful time watching the Twins beat the Cleveland Indians. It was a great way to “study” for our luncheon with Twins’ president Dave St. Peter too!

UST MBA faculty and staff take on a "Minute to Win It" challenge at the MBA Follies.

Last Friday students, faculty and staff of the UST Full-time MBA program got together in a more informal setting to relax and share some laughs at the Follies 2010. The evening started with a networking reception in Terrance Murphy Hall; then moved to the ThorntonAuditorium for a great show, full of creativity and good humor.

Faculty, staff and students worked together to create the most hilarious skits–some of which were based on famous SNLsketches and movies like Avatar. There were also games, limericks and the “Most Likely’s” awards with categories like “Most likely to rule the world” and “Most likely to live in the Commons next year.” It was an unforgettable evening where the only rule was to have fun. Thank you to all the organizers and skits’ participants for this amazing time. I can’t wait to see what we come up with next year!

The Full-time UST MBA program offers students several ways of getting involved with the community, like participating in clubs and the Student Association. Although, during my first semester I didn’t become an active member, I collaborated in most of the activities planned by the International Club. This spring, when applications for board positions were opened, I decided to get more involved and help strengthen the current position of the club.

Six positions were available: President, Vice President, Internal Communication Officer, External Communications Officer, Financial Officer and General Board Member. Since I had the experience of managing the internal and external communications for the Rotaract Cacique Baruta Club of Rotary International at Venezuela, I felt the Internal Communications Officer position would be a good fit. At the same time, I encouraged my husband to run for President, which he did.

This week, the names of the new board members were announced and we were pleased to find out that we were appointed for the positions we applied. We have a lot of new ideas to increase the awareness of the club. Below is the complete list of the new International Student Club Board:

In a restaurant, in a hotel, on the Internet – almost anywhere – we are constantly invited to take surveys. Sometimes we take them, but we think “What is this for?”

In our ABR (Applied Business Research) course, we have learned that an essential part of business research involves collecting data that can be quantified and analyzed using statistical techniques in order to arrive at a description of our target population. This means that if we, for example, wish to know the average level of satisfaction customers feel about our services or products, we need to design a tool to collect that information and transform it into numbers. This tool is a survey, and it is the final piece of our ABR project.

During the past two weeks, each team in the class has designed a survey for its clients. Each survey is, of course, unique and depends on our client’s main objective. In my team’s case, our client (Best Buy) wants to know its customers’ perceptions of a new concept. So our team has combined several techniques that allow us to build a random set of questions for each respondent that weight the importance of different attributes related to this new concept. After several revisions, we finally finished it and will e-mail it to a sample of Best Buy customers in the hope that they will take a few minutes of their time to help us gather the data we need.

So next time you receive a survey, just take a few seconds to think about all the work that is behind that set of questions. Also remember the contribution you will be making to the organization – helping them understand your needs much better. So please complete the survey!

From our career services staff to our professors, everyone has the same piece of advice for us when looking for our internships: “Work on your networking.” For some of us this is the start of our worst nightmare. We do not know how to approach somebody we haven’t met before, we do not know what to say and we do not want people to think we are stalkers. But today I tell you if you manage to conquer those fears, networking works.

In February, I assisted as a volunteer to the UST MBA Forum with Princeton Review on campus. During the session a panel of current students talked about their experiences at UST. One of them was an evening student that works at Cummins. As soon as I heard that my heart just jumped and I thought: I want to work at Cummins!

Of course all the fears that I just mentioned also jumped to my head, but my husband–who is also a UST MBA student–encouraged me to fight those fears and approach him. So, I waited outside the auditorium after the event and talked to him. First I mentioned that I am also part of the UST community and then I let him know my interest in an internship position at Cummins. To my surprise he was very pleased that I approached to him and he gave me his card and told me to send him my resume.

One week later I had an informational interview with him. We had a cup of coffee and talked more about the company and my opportunities inside the company. The following week I was contacted by the human resources department for an interview–he had given them my resume. The next Monday I had my interview and by the end of the week I had an offer. So, yes, it is true: networking is important and can help you to find the internship of your dreams.

Spring is already here! No more snow and cold weather. But spring means more than that to us, it means that we finished the first half of our second semester. We are only one month and half away to finish our first year in the Full-time UST MBA program.

Midterms this semester were not as stressful as last semester. We only have two midterms compared to four plus our team project in the fall. Of course this semester we also have a major team project in our ABR class and several small assignments in operations that contribute to the workload, but nothing is more stressful than a test. So if you know how to handle your time – and believe you will know after the first semester – you will have time to fulfill the requirements of your projects plus study for your two midterms without losing any sleep.

Now we have a whole week to recharge our batteries to start our second half of this semester. I hope everybody have a great spring break.

I appreciate how the Full-time UST MBA program offers a combination of academics and professional experience. An example of this is the integration of special speakers’ days into the regular class schedule. Faculty members are always looking for the best speakers that can complement the the lectures and in class discussion. This was the case two weeks ago in our Applied Business Research (ABR) class.

Three wonderful speakers came to our class and shared their experience in the area of qualitative marketing research:

Luke Cahill, UST MBA ’07, owner of Marketing Roundtables, introduced us to the world of exploratory in-store research.

Last Saturday a group of 15 Full-time UST MBA students, and some of their partners, had the opportunity to help improve the life of starving children around the world by working as volunteers at Feed My Starving Children.

Among its other outreach, FMSC is helping relief efforts in Haiti after the earthquake there:

When the earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, 3 million FMSC meals were already on the ground with our Haiti-based mission partners.

Since the earthquake hit, 6 million meals have been shipped to Haiti from FMSC warehouses.

Thousands of meals have been airlifted into Haiti and are being distributed.

Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit Christian organization founded in 1987 to eliminate starvation in children throughout the world by hand-packing specially formulated meals and shipping them to more than 60 countries around world. As part of its organizational commitment all the food is packed by volunteers.

Each packing site has several workstations where volunteers pack the food. Other volunteers put identification and nutrition facts stickers on each package, move the boxes to the warehouse and refill the ingredients that are being used by the other volunteers.

Each FMSC meal provides the key nutrients a starving child needs to survive and thrive:

Rice – the most widely accepted grain around the world

Extruded soy nuggets – maximum protein at a low cost

20 vitamins and minerals (with vegetarian chicken flavor)

Dehydrated vegetables – nutrition and flavor

Preparation: Just cook with boiling water.

Cost: Each meal costs only 17 cents to produce.

My husband and I had a great time adding the ingredients and weighing the packages. The atmosphere in the room was filled with joy and enthusiasm. Everybody was doing their best to package as much food as possible. At the end of two hours, we had 51 boxes filled with a total of 1836 packages–that will feed 30 children for an entire year.

If you are looking for an organization to support with volunteer work and/or money in order to help others that need it the most, I invite you to consider Feed My Starving Children and learn more about how you can help achieve its goal.

Later this year, the Full-time UST MBA program should be greeting its fourth program director since the program’s inception in fall of 2003. My involvement with our Full-time MBA students, staff and faculty will continue as the assistant dean for UST MBA programs. However, my number one mission since I joined the University of St. Thomas as the program director and, later, as assistant dean, will come to a close. I was brought in to lead all four MBA programs, including our Evening, Health Care, and Executive UST MBA programs. But with an organizational structure that looked radically different from the structure we have today, and with seasoned program directors reporting to me for the Executive and Health Care UST MBA programs when I assumed my role, it was clear that hands-on leadership of a relatively new and rapidly growing full-time program was an area that would require the greatest amount of my working day.

Coming to my first academic post from a corporate marketing and management consulting background, I had a great deal to learn. I was excited by the challenge. Having earned an M.B.A. myself some 20-odd years ago, as well as having earned another masters degree, I had significant exposure as a consumer of graduate education, but no deep understanding of how the magic was made. What’s more, I have been an active alumnus of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and stay connected with my old professors and the school’s administrative staff, as well as a number of my fellow alumni. In addition, I’ve played the role of corporate recruiter. Back in the day when I was a marketing director with Johnson and Johnson, I made a number of recruiting visits to Michigan, as well as Northwestern and Indiana University. I was even part of J&J’s Michigan recruiting team. I helped develop and deploy our corporate strategy for recruiting M.B.A. talent at the Ross School. I also had the pleasure of recruiting and supervising a marketing intern for my department one summer. These experiences gave me multiple views to what a high-powered graduate business school was, as well as strong opinions of what graduate education should be.

As I took stock of this new, complex organization that I was asked to lead, at times I felt at risk of sensory overload. The academic calendar year proved to be as cruel a task-master for administrators as it had been for me as a student. The relationship between administration and the faculty has no counterpart in the business world, yet effectively managing that relationship was a critical and sensitive aspect of my new role. I needed to be responsive to multiple constituencies, including my direct reports, the staff members that reported to them, my boss, current students, prospective students, peers in complementary functions, potential employers for full-time alumni and current employers for our part-time students. I found my colleagues, especially faculty, had a voracious capacity for generating e-mail, and quickly found myself challenged to the limit to keep up with their output.

In the midst of this, after about a month on the job, I realized that our current students, although clearly the central reason for our existence, were at risk of falling out of my field of vision. When I did interact with a student, it was typically to deal with an urgent problem – academic performance issues, financial crises, a complaint about a faculty member or a fellow student. I was at risk of seeing our students as level-zero interrupts to a steady flow of information to digest and decisions to make.

I contrasted this to my memory of the educators who had made the greatest impact on me as a student. Without exception, the high school, college and graduate school faculty and staff that I remembered most vividly were the ones where my interaction wasn’t limited to classroom lectures or issue resolution conversations. It was the educators who made time for me to get to know them – to hear my story and to share their own.

It was this realization that led me to the first innovation of my nascent academic career. I instituted office hours. Granted, I didn’t invent the idea of office hours. But it is rather unusual for a non-faculty administrator to maintain regular hours when students (or staff at any level) can stop by, without an appointment, and just engage in dialogue. Often the conversations are issue-driven. A student, despite working regularly with the career services staff for the entire year, finds himself within a few days of graduation and still has no offer in hand. There is a complaint about a grade a student feels was unfair. A summer internship has resulted in an end-of-the summer permanent job offer with an immediate start date – should the student stay in school and finish what she started, or seize the offer now? At other times, it’s just an exchange of ideas, or catching up on how a suggestion made months ago worked out. Sometimes it’s an offer of an idea on how to make our program better.

Although I will be passing along the day-to-day management of the Full-time UST MBA program to a new program director who will be dedicated to leading St. Thomas’ most visible graduate business program, the office hours will continue. The staffing structure for the UST MBA programs looks much different then when I came to St. Thomas two years ago, and we’ve brought in and promoted some tremendously talented new staff, particularly in our Full-time and Evening programs. However, I came to this role with a desire to impact not organizational charts, but the educational experience of our students. And I never, ever find that a minute spent with a student is a wasted minute. It’s those unstructured, unscheduled conversations that have been the most memorable, at least for me. For a few minutes each week, the e-mails and staff meetings will just have to wait.

The ACG Cup is a case study competition hosted by the Association for Corporate Growth that is designed to give students from leading MBA programs across the country real world experience and invaluable insights into mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, financial advisory and private equity. Each case study provides students with a unique opportunity to present valuation, capital markets and M&A strategic advice to a panel of seasoned M&A professionals from within the ACG community. The competition is carried out through a series of intra-school and regional competitions, with regional winners awarded the prestigious ACG Cup title and cash awards.

The chance to represent UST in next week’s regional finals attracted 5 UST MBA teams yesterday. Each team had one week to analyze a financial case and develop a compelling 20 minute presentation, given to three ACG judges: Jeff Arnesen of Houlihan Lokey; Alan Thometz of Grant Thornton; and Andy Platt of Norwest Equity Partners.

These judges had a significant challenge picking the best from among six competing presentations (Concordia University also fielded a team). Last year we were thrilled that not one but two UST teams were selected to go on to the final round. So you can imagine the excitement when, after the dust had settled and the final slide presented, that not two but three UST teams made the final cut!

Congratulations to Round 1’s winning teams:

Team 1 – Kevin Hejna, Brad Maiers, Shawn Moses, Sam Sands

Team 2 – Naren Heart, Grant Seipkes

Team 3 – Ahmed El Shourbagy, John Quinn, Jake Heidkamp

In speaking to all the competitors after the event, it was clear that there were no losers, as all who participated gained valuable analytical and presentation experience as well as useful contacts in the Financial investment community.

Next week these three teams will face off against the Round 1 winner from University of Iowa, here at Schulze Auditorium, at 5 p.m. Thursday, February 11. Last year’s top-ranked UST team came in second to a winning Iowa contingent, so this year represents an opportunity to even the score.

This week we finished our two-week J-term fresh with the leadership and communication skills needed to start and succeed in our second semester. On Wednesday we were assigned to our ABR (Applied Business Reserach) clients. The list of clients this year was quite diverse, including Dairy Queen, Hennepin County Medical Center, internal University of St. Thomas clients, Best Buy, General Motors and others.

My team was assigned to Best Buy, and we are very excited about our project! It will be demanding and definitely a unique experience for all us. Plus we have the 18 years of experience in the area of marketing research of our ABR instructor, Prof. John Sailors, to enhance this experience.

Now we have to start preparing our brains again for the second semester of the full-time program. In addition to ABR, classes this semester include financial management, operations management and managerial accounting—and an elective course of our choice. In my case I’m taking economics strategy—considered a must-have if you are interested in consulting.

Yesterday we finished our first week of J-term. We have each been assigned to new groups for the Spring Semester. During this week he had some team building activities that allowed us to get to know each other better.

Our most challenging project for the next semester is our ABR (Applied Business Research) project. In this course we have the incredible and unique opportunity to work as consultants for a real client. Usually these clients are firms located in Minnesota that need support doing a particular research for a product or service. In the past other UST MBA students have worked with companies like Cambria, Minnesota Timberwolves and NSHMBA, among others. This is a great opportunity to gain real work experience while being guided by a great professor with years of experience in consulting. At the end of next week we will meet our ABR project clients.

Next week will start with a corporate tour to Nordstrom and a guest speaker: Isaias Zamarripa, former director of talent acquisition and diversity at General Mills. These activities are planned by our great Career Services department, which is always working to improve our networking capabilities.